Analytics Is Everyone’s NOT Favorite Subject

Analytics–the word that strikes fear in many a marketer’s hearts. It’s the “accounting” of the marketing world. And while almost everyone understands and will admit that the data can be strategic to social media success, using analytics to access and guide strategy is not as rampant as it should be. Truthfully, any brand trying to bring in business leads through social media avenues should realize the utmost importance of analytics and use the data to make better decisions that will lead your strategy to increased success.

For those of you familiar with me, you’re probably also acquainted with my process that I call the Blueprint Strategy. In this strategy, I use my mobile live stream broadcasts to lead my social media across all channels. Meaning, that this blog post was completed after I did a live stream. I took what I said in my broadcast and transcribed it into a blog post and a Linkedin article. From there, I’ll share it across my other social media platforms to provide a continuous message.

When I begin my Blueprint Strategy, the first thing that I identify is what my broadcast subject will be, the goal of that broadcast and what type of broadcast it will be. For example, the stream that facilitated this blog post was “Analytics Is Everyone’s Not Favorite Subject.” The goal of the broadcast was to give a few tips on analytics specifically for live streaming, and my broadcast will be a tutorial.

With those few items in place and an analytic baseline from your previous live streams, you can begin altering your engagement and make small changes, one at a time to measure effectiveness. Because I’m rolling my strategy together with both live streaming and my other social media channels, I should see correlating numbers tell a significant story across my platforms.

On Fullscope for Periscope, you can measure the number of views, comments, and hearts, followers added (which is a crucial metric), shares and screenshots. It also shows you average watch time and what I love, which is the actions of each viewer on your broadcast. There are two telling numbers, the time when the viewer joined the broadcast and the engagement rank.

Likewise on Facebook Live, you can see the total number of minutes viewed, total views, unique views, and 10-second views. It also shows the average % completion, which portion of the video is viewed in an average watch session which points to audience retention, the average view duration, and overall reach.

Both show you exactly how long it takes for viewers to tune into your broadcast too, which allows you to plan your streams, making sure that the most impactful messages don’t get conveyed until after your peak viewership is engaged in your video.

All these new metrics will take some experimentation on your part, using the real-time feedback of your audience and your analytics data to learn what’s working for you. Keep track of your data and it will show you some significant baseline numbers to help you pinpoint what’s working and what’s not and make the necessary changes to your strategy.

Pay attention to big drops or boosts in viewership throughout your broadcasts and make notes as to the reasons. And of course, you can always do some crowdsourcing and ask your viewers for feedback.

See me talk about this LIVE on Periscope @BarbaraKeckler and on Facebook Live at Barbara Keckler

Stay tuned for even more analytics, ROI and SEO pointers in the coming weeks!